‘You’ll get a lot of media people in here this evening, Douggie. Town centre is full of them.’
‘So long as they behave themselves. They can use the bar and the lounge. I’m saying the snug’s closed for a private function. There’s a back door and a bit of a hallway, Sophie will show you where. Your lot and Alec and Naomi can come and go just as you like and the Friedmans can get to their room through the back way too.’
Steel thanked him.
‘I hear the little lass has woken up?’
‘She has. She couldn’t tell us much we hadn’t worked out, though.’
Douggie nodded wisely. ‘Her mam and dad used to drink here sometimes. Our Sal used to babysit from time to time. She did a bit of a cleaning job at the doctors’, so she knew Lisanne. Sophie’s already had a word with her but I’ve told her you’ll maybe want to talk to her as well.’
Steel had no idea who ‘our Sal’ might be but assumed Willis would fill him in if it mattered. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘You’ve been really helpful.’
‘Community spirit,’ Douggie said, and Steel had a sudden anxiety that he might be about to be on the receiving end of a lecture on the subject. Fortunately, Douggie noticed the time and decided he’d best ‘get another barrel on’ ready for the expected influx of extra customers.
‘You’ll find tea and coffee and sandwiches in the snug,’ he told Steel, and then disappeared down through a hatch behind the bar.
Steel went through to the tiny room at the side of the bar. A notice had been plastered across the door which announced that the snug was closed for a private function. Three people sat around a couple of round tables, eating their way through a mountain of sandwiches and shop-bought cake.
Willis looked tired, he thought, but then she’d been on scene as long as he had. She smiled at him as he ducked his head under the low door and came inside. Steel knew he must look as though he could fill the little room all on his own.
The strangers looked his way as he entered. The man stood and extended a hand to shake. The woman faced in his direction, her gaze almost but not quite on target.
Introductions were made, hands shaken, then Steel grabbed a plate and joined them at the feast, suddenly aware that he’d not eaten since the couple of slices of toast one of the volunteers had given him at the church that morning.
‘I called the prison,’ Willis said. ‘Terry Baldwin is still under lock and key. Sarah was definitely mistaken about hearing her father’s voice.’
Steel nodded, gestured for her to go on. ‘I spoke to both the doctors at the surgery where Lisanne Griffin worked as receptionist. The Pauleys are husband and wife. Been here for ever and the practice was his father’s before that. She’d been recommended to them by someone from the Winslow Trust. It’s an organization that helps the families of prisoners relocate, find work, accommodation, that sort of thing. It also helps women whose partners were convicted of violent acts against them or their children and who want to make a fresh start.’
‘Have you spoken to anyone from the Trust?’ Steel asked before taking another ravenous mouthful of cheese and pickle and thick crusty bread.
‘Not yet. I’ve left a message with the contact the doctors had but they’ve warned me that the Trust security is on a level that MI Five would be proud of. It might take a while before Lisanne Griffin’s friend – they call their caseworkers “friends”, apparently – will get in touch with us.’
‘I had dealings with the Winslow Trust once or twice,’ Naomi said. ‘Not just over Lisanne Griffin – or rather Thea Baldwin, as she was when we knew her.’
‘What can you tell me about them?’ Steel asked.
Naomi gathered her thoughts. ‘It’s an old organization, got charitable status back in the eighteen hundreds, I think, and I think it was originally for the rehabilitation of sex workers—’
‘It was a Quaker thing, wasn’t it?’ Alec asked.
‘I believe so, initially, yes. They don’t advertise their activities and they don’t encourage any kind of publicity. If I remember right, the first time I heard of them was when a prison chaplain I knew introduced me to a woman called Jessica Spence. I needed somewhere for a woman and two kids to go very quickly and very discreetly. The woman’s old man was coming home and she was petrified, knew he’d find her in any of the local shelters because he had before. The chaplain suggested the Trust might help.’
‘And they did?’
‘They were startlingly efficient,’ Naomi said. ‘I got a card from the woman a few months later. Just a thank you.’
‘And the second time?’
‘Jessica Spence gave me her card and told me I could contact her direct. The one rule – well, I suppose there were two rules, really. One was that I should never pass her details on, even to a colleague. I was her point of contact and that was that. If I broke that rule, she’d refuse to have anything to do with me. The second was that I should only ever call when all other avenues had been explored. The Trust isn’t a first line of defence, it’s the last.’
‘And the second time you had contact with her?’
‘Was a different situation,’ Naomi said. ‘It was a man this time. Do you know, there’s not one dedicated shelter in the country for male victims of domestic violence?’
Steel nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see him. ‘It’s largely unreported,’ he agreed. ‘Did they help?’
‘They did, yes. I contacted Jess Spence again about a year after that when I needed help for Thea and Sarah. She was very ill by then and in a hospice, but she passed my details on and another woman contacted me. I never even knew her name. I just had a phone number and was told to ask for Jessica’s friend. After that I had no further contact with the Trust.’
‘Did the doctors Pauley say how they knew about the Trust?’
Willis nodded. ‘Mrs Pauley is from a Quaker family. She said the request came via the community, but she didn’t know much more than that. I think the whole point is that as little information as possible is passed on.’
‘So …’ Steel paused thoughtfully. ‘We know who Lisanne and Sarah were and why they ran. Also how they stayed ahead of her husband or whoever it was that put out the hit on them. Was she actually married to Victor Griffin or did she just take his name? And what do we know about him?’
‘So far, not a lot. They bought the house just over three years ago. We’re still chasing down the estate agent on that. Victor Griffin got the job at Andersons a couple of months after that. He was the assistant manager there and apparently very well thought of.’
‘Andersons?’ Alec asked.
‘Sells agricultural equipment and feed, that sort of thing,’ Willis told him. ‘They said he didn’t socialize much but he and Mrs Griffin would turn up for the works Christmas do and the summer barbecue, which was a sort of local event for customers as well.’
Steel nodded.
‘One thing that puzzles me,’ Naomi said. ‘Thea Baldwin was a city girl, grew up in south London. She didn’t meet Terry there but she came back to the city when she married him. They settled back there. If she wanted to disappear, why not choose another city? Manchester, Liverpool, even somewhere in the Midlands. True, this is a bit off the beaten track, but it’s also small, exposed.’
‘And somewhere a stranger would stand out,’ Steel said. ‘You could argue it works either way. Once the Griffins got established here the community would be aware of anyone coming and asking after them. Maybe it felt safer. Maybe Victor Griffin has connections round here. Maybe it just happened to be where this Trust thought it could place them. Jobs where no questions are asked are not easy to come by.’
‘And Victor Griffin?’ Alec asked. ‘Did they ask questions about him when he applied for the job?’
‘Came with excellent references, apparently. From some company down in the West Country.’ She flipped through her notes. ‘Chambers and Son. Similar set up to Andersons from the look of it. Agricultural supplies. I tried the number but didn’t
get a reply. I’ve not had a chance to chase it.’
‘The information is three years old,’ Steel said. ‘It could be out of date. We’ll get the local force involved, see what they can turn up, but my guess is it’ll turn out to be another dead end.’
He glanced at his watch and stood up, instinctively bowing his head in the low ceilinged room.
‘You want me?’ Willis asked.
‘No, I want you to get back to the church hall, see what’s happening over there, and then check in with the hospital. Then I want you to get off home and get some sleep. Meet me back here at seven thirty, we’ll join Alec and Naomi for breakfast, if that’s all right with them. Then I want to take Naomi with me, if she agrees.’
‘Agrees to what?’ Naomi said.
‘To go with me to visit Terry Baldwin in prison. You put him there, it seems right you should be with me when I ask him about his wife.’
Naomi tensed, then nodded.
‘You don’t have to do that,’ Alec told her. ‘I could go. I worked on the same case.’
‘Sorry, Alec, but by the time you came on board most of it was done and dusted. Baldwin was my last big job before … before I left. No, I’ll go.’ She smiled. ‘Baldwin always hated the fact that it was a woman who brought him down. I can’t imagine he’ll be any more pleased to see me now than he was back then.’
FOURTEEN
Joey hadn’t wanted to go home but knew he’d have to sooner or later. He hung around at Tel’s place until he was fairly sure his dad would have gone out – first to the pub and then on to work – then took his leave of Tel and Maggie and walked slowly home.
Maggie had called the policeman earlier, that DI Steel that looked like a scruffy bear, and asked if there was any news from the hospital. He told her that he’d not forgotten his promise to get Joey in to see Sarah – and in Joey’s mind the rather vague assertion that he’d try had solidified into just that – and that he’d call Maggie the following day.
He’d not suggested calling Joey, or coming and talking to Joey at his house either; that told Joey that this Steel knew all about the Hughes family, and Joey wasn’t sure what to think about that. Whether to be glad that the Inspector had the good sense not to bring police business to Joey’s door, or sad that his dad had such a crap reputation that even a man like Steel, built like a brick shithouse, as Joey’s granddad used to say, was reluctant to cross the Hughes threshold.
Maggie had fed him and Joey was grateful for that. His mum might have cooked him something but that depended on how long his dad had been gone and what she’d managed to put aside and hide from her husband. Joey’s dad always laid down the law when he’d had a run in with his son (‘He doesn’t show respect, he doesn’t get fed’) and though Joey’s mum did her best to sneak food for him, Joey’s dad knew, he reckoned, to the last slice of bread what was in the house.
Joey turned his key in the lock and stepped quietly into the hall, listening all the while and ready to make a run for it.
‘He’s not here, Joey. He’s gone already.’ His mother’s voice came from the living room and Joey went through. She was sitting with the lights off, staring at the television. Joey turned on the lamp and came round to look at her. She’d got another bruise on her face and finger marks blackened her arm. She pulled down the cardigan sleeve to hide that but could do nothing about the mess on her face.
‘God, Mum. You’ve got to do something about him.’
She shook her head. ‘Like what, Joey?’
‘Leave.’
‘And where would I go? Who’d have me now?’
‘Anywhere. We could go anywhere. We could get on a bus and just clear out. We could go to the police.’
‘No police,’ she said flatly. ‘I don’t trust the police.’
Joey sighed. ‘And as to who’d have you, Mum, what kind of stupid question is that?’
She flinched at the ‘s’ word and Joey immediately regretted it. His dad was always ‘stupid’ this and ‘stupid’ that … ‘You don’t need anyone to “have you”. You don’t need another man. Life isn’t about having some man just so he can knock you about.’
She flinched again and in that moment Joey both pitied and hated her. Anger and frustration boiling up inside of him until he almost wanted to hit her too. He turned away, ashamed and horrified. One of his dad’s other sayings was ‘She asked for it. She just asked for it’, and in that fraction of a second Joey almost saw what he meant.
‘Want some tea?’ he said.
‘I’ll make it.’
‘No, you stay there. You had anything to eat?’
‘I’m not hungry, Joey.’
‘Did he tell you that? Tell you you weren’t hungry? God, Mum—’
‘I’ve been watching on the telly,’ she interrupted and Joey, reluctantly, allowed her to distract him.
‘I saw about that girl you like and her family.’
‘Sarah. Her name’s Sarah. Her little brother was called Jack. Her mum and stepdad were Vic and Lisanne. I liked them.’
He was driving the knife in again, Joey thought. Hurting her. Trouble was, he didn’t know how not to hurt his mother and he wondered if she even knew how not to be hurt.
‘Will she be OK?’
Joey sat down on the settee next to her. ‘They think so,’ he said. ‘Jack was shot dead. She tried to get him away but she was shot and the bullet went through into Jack.’
That was what Maggie had told him the policeman had said. Maggie had told him that Steel was telling more than he should, probably, because he knew how Joey felt about Sarah. Joey wasn’t sure any of that was true, but he liked the sound of it anyway. Liked that someone cared how he felt.
‘Do they know who did it? The telly didn’t say much. Did you go to school today?’
Joey leaned back with his eyes closed, the frustration building again. He’d run off that morning, not in his uniform, without his school bag, and not come home until three hours after school was over – though to be fair, that wasn’t unusual – and she wanted to know if he’d been to school.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I joined in the search. Tel did too. Maggie was there.’
‘Maggie.’ Joey’s mum almost spat the word and he immediately regretted mentioning it. His mum knew that Tel was his best friend and she knew that Maggie fed her son, looked after him in a way, and that was the trouble, Joey supposed. His mum saw Joey’s involvement with this other woman as almost as much of a betrayal as if his dad had found himself someone else to beat up.
‘I’ll make that tea,’ Joey said.
They spent the evening watching television, Joey trying to catch every news bulletin and his mum fretting at the interruption to her programmes. They were her escape, she always said, though Joey could never see how; the soaps and dramas she loved seemed to be full of violent men and troubled women and people doing unspeakable things to others. He wondered just how any of that could be classed as an escape.
He went to his room just after ten and texted Tel. Joey’s phone was an old one of Maggie’s – and his mum didn’t know about that, either. Maggie slipped him a five pound token every now and again and, as he only ever texted on it, Joey managed to keep it fed with credit. He charged it in the socket under his bed, hidden behind a box so neither parent could see the bright blue LED charging light. Not that his parents came into his room very often. The only time his mum bothered was to bring him the occasional cup of tea. His dad’s only reason was to take some item of Joey’s and deliberately break it when Joey had upset him more than usual, but the truth was the novelty of that was wearing off, simply because Joey didn’t own very much.
You OK? Tel asked. Is your mum OK?
He hit her again. I told her she’s got to leave to call the police or something but it’s wasting breath.
Sorry. You heard anything new?
No. You going to school tomorrow?
Mum says I have to, she says she can’t take more time off work anyway. She says you should come for br
eakfast.
Joey smiled. OK thanks. See you tomorrow.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to face school, but there wasn’t a lot else he could do. He and Maggie and Tel had rejoined the search teams that afternoon and stayed until it was getting dark but only smaller teams would be needed tomorrow and Maggie had told them that they should not lose more time from their studies. That it would be far better to keep their minds occupied than hang around brooding anyway.
Then she had called Inspector Steel and spoken to him and he’d made his promise.
Joey lay down on his bed and pulled the quilt up. He was still fully dressed but the room was cold and he could never be quite sure that his dad wouldn’t make a surprise visit home between leaving the pub and going to work at eleven. Once that milestone had passed Joey felt more confident about undressing and getting to sleep.
He thought about what his mother had said, about not being able to leave, and Joey sighed. He couldn’t go on living like this; other people didn’t live like this so why should he?
But he knew he couldn’t leave either, at least not yet, and the reason was not just his mother. Sarah was hurt; Sarah was lying in a hospital bed because someone had tried not just to beat her but to take her life away, and the thought of losing her terrified him. He knew that few people took the feelings of a fifteen-year-old boy and a fourteen-year-old girl very seriously, but Joey knew that he loved her and the thought that he’d almost lost her was tearing him apart.
FIFTEEN
In her waking life, Naomi rarely spared time or regrets thinking about what she had come to regard as her previous self, but she had no such control over her dreams.
She drifted into sleep thinking about Thea Baldwin as she had been back then, so the fact that she found herself, somewhere between dreaming and waking, back in those few weeks before her accident, came as no surprise.
Thea Baldwin had been a pretty woman. Mid twenties, blonde and slim, with long, highlighted hair and blue grey eyes. Her little girl, though with coffee-coloured skin and faintly crinkly hair that spoke of her father’s ancestry, still managed to look a lot like her.
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